Nothing New in Nevada: Trump Wins Big, Yet Again
Almost doubling the number of votes cast for his nearest rival, Donald Trump won yet again, sweeping the Silver State’s caucus for his third consecutive win. So convincing was his margin of victory, so solid was his dominance across all of the major constituencies, including Hispanics, that the way forward for the rest of the Republican field largely remains in doubt.
There is much talk from the talking heads that Trump has “hit his ceiling of percentile support- that he will go no higher because of his ‘unfavorables.’” These same talking heads said the very same thing when his polled support was at 15%, then 23%, then 27%, then 31%, and now they are saying is again with Trump winning the caucus vote at 46%.
There is also much talk from the talking heads that “if, only if, all of the remaining candidates would just coalesce around a single candidate, ‘the Donald’ could be stopped, dead in his tracks.” Well, maybe. But such a scenario would almost require that every single one of the voters, who cast votes for all three of the other four candidates, would throw their support behind either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. Such an assumption is nearly impossible because some of those votes would doubtlessly go to Trump, others would not be cast at all, and the remaining votes would not be enough to derail Trump’s train, in any event. Add to this the fact that neither Rubio nor Cruz has shown any indication of backing down, and have been going at each other like two feral tom-cats fighting over a molly-cat. As of this writing, neither John Kasich nor Ben Carson have indicated their willingness to drop out, either, despite the fact that they have absolutely no chance of winning anything other than the adoration of those who don’t like the top three.
If Donald Trump were to go on and defeat Ted Cruz in Texas on March 1st, and defeat both Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio on March 15th, there is no way that anyone else could even dream of catching him, and this is the nightmare scenario that the mainstream Republican power brokers dread, most of all.
Why?
A Trump nomination would settle, once and for all, who controls the Republican Party- the Washington elites, or the Republican voters, themselves. Since all of the Republican insiders can only agree on one thing- that they don’t like Trump- such a victory would render these insiders as, essentially, irrelevant, and so would go their influence on Republican politics. The same holds true for the mainstream media who has been predicting the “downfall of the Donald” since he launched his candidacy in mid-June, 2015.
So it is indeed ironic, that it is entirely possible that the Republican nomination might be all sewn up, even before the Democratic nomination is settled.
Why?
Well, for one thing, most of Hillary’s delegates are “super-delegates,” essentially party insiders who are free to vote however they choose, irrespective of primary and caucus results, which is why Hillary left New Hampshire with more delegates than Bernie Sanders, despite the fact that Sanders won the state’s popular vote by a two-to-one margin. Yet, these “super-delegates” are free to change their votes, right up until the final votes are cast at the Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia, later this summer. Essentially, Hillary’s command of the delegate count is fragile to the extent that further revelations regarding e-mail servers, the Clinton foundation, etc., can eat away at her electability, an electability already beset with questions regarding her honesty and trustworthiness. While the Democrat power brokers are pretty much in the tank for Hillary, they also are smart enough to know that Bernie Sanders’ nomination would all but assure a Republican victory in November, simply because there are just not enough college kids around who want free stuff, to counter the remaining voters who would never abide the election of a socialist, not even a “Democratic socialist” as Bernie has often described himself. So, if it seems that the “criminal” cannot defeat the “commie,” a brokered convention would result in a Biden-Warren ticket, in a last-ditch effort to save Obama’s “legacy,” such as it is.
Regardless, the election of 2016 is shaping up to be an election which will doubtlessly turn conventional (pun intended) wisdom on its ear, for the simple reason that the candidate who has spent the least amount of money (his own, by the way) is likely going to parlay what is now, a three-way race for his party’s nomination, into a freeway sprint to Cleveland, “come hell or high water,” as he likes to say.
And that is the reality facing the Republican Party on the week before Super Tuesday, 2016.
-Drew Nickell, 24 February 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.